325F: Disappearing Girlfriend’s Sister Turns Out To Be The Missing Woman

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I recently read a book, it was a “psychological thriller”.  Basically there was a guy from Ireland (calling him Shane) who had moved to England and stayed with a male friend. Shane got a girlfriend who was lost in London and he took her under his wing. They eventually went away together and on the way back, they stopped at a rest stop and he told the police she went missing while he was in the rest stop bathroom.

Shane was initially questioned as she was never found but never charged with her murder.  The London flatmate eventually suggests that they put a bench out in honor of the missing girl. The girls sister shows at this event.  Eventually Shane and the missing girl’s sister connect and become engaged.  Once it becomes announced in the paper, odd things start to happen, including the leaving of the small inside of a Russian nesting doll all over the place for Shane and fiancee to find.

Eventually, we find that the fiancee is actually the missing girl and that her sister had actually died years ago by her abusive dad in some small, hard to get to island town.

Any idea what this book is?

325E: Dan and Dee’s Diving Adventures

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This is a tough one.  I am looking for a kid’s book from when my daughter was 5 (2000). It was a book that my mother-in-law got second hand….not sure what year it was.  It was a kid’s picture book with not too many pages (probably less than 20). We have tried and tried to find this book online and no luck. It was about Dan and his wife Dee and their diving adventures. Want to get it for my daughter as a birthday gift, if I can ever find it.

325D: Huge Book of Bedtime Fairy Tales

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My book of bedtime stories? Huge light blue book with pictures of the characters on front and inside the cover. Beautiful thick pages with each first letter having vines/ flowers. One fairy tale was about a poor boy who had to do heaps of tasks in order to marry the king’s daughter. Like row a boat on land and catch heaps of rabbits? Ect. I think another story may have been called Princess Gloria. She was locked in a dungeon and had to sort through millions of coloured threads. Another story was called The Fountain of Youth. And I think The Little Match Girl was also in this book. Please, please help me find this book. I have been searching for it for 20 years. So looking forward to hearing from you.

325C: The sea, New England, disappearances. . .

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I am looking for a book that I had started many years ago as a tween but have since forgotten the title. I never finished it, but what I can remember was that it had a dark (possibly black) cover. In terms of plot I believe it had something to do with mysterious disappearances, where people where inexplicably called or lured into the sea and never seen again. I believe it was set in New England in a coastal town. It would have been a hardcover around the time of 2000-2005. I think there was something about a man and his father having gone into the ocean. Maybe a sea monster? I didn’t get far enough into the story to figure out why the people were disappearing. I believe it was a book for adults. I don’t think it was part of a series. The time period was modern. I don’t know if it was mystery or horror, as I never finished it. I think it might’ve been classified as mystery. I don’t think it was a young adult book and I believe it had a male author

325A: Pubescent Children Develop Telepathic Powers

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There’s a novel that I read years ago (late 70’s or early 80’s) from a library in England for which I can no longer remember the author or the title; so if you recognize the content, I’d be a happy camper. 🙂

The only things I can remember are…

1/ It was about mental powers, telepathy, etc

2/ Children developed these abilities at or around puberty (I think). If I remember correctly, the general populace/government reacted badly to these children.

3/ There was a woman scientist who studied these children and came up with a way to synthesize the catalyst, which she then tried on herself and, after a really rough transition, found that she had the same abilities.

3.1/ I’ve also got a vague recollection (so take it with a grain of salt) that other adults who tried to gain these powers died.

4/ The initial symptom of these powers was an increase in sensory perception and intense pleasure – enough to lock the affected person into repeating whatever felt good regardless of what it was doing to them.

4.1/ The woman scientist/doctor who managed to synthesize the activating chemical and used it on herself ended up “making love” to a tree (I’ve got a dim memory of the description of the feel of the bark against her naked skin).

4.2/ Another scene (probably just a paragraph or sentence) had a description of a boy who kept “pleasuring himself” for hours; even though he was now raw and bleeding, he couldn’t stop. (I think this was one of the notes the scientist/doctor compiled about the affected children, rather than being a central theme or character development).

4.3/ The powers allowed the children to feel the emotions of others (though I do not remember if it was limited to others with powers or everyone in general) and they banded together to feel safe/loved/etc. when the rest of the world turned against them due to fear. I don’t remember if it was true telepathy or just extreme empathy.

5/ Once she had the same abilities as the children, the woman scientist joined up with a group of them – presumably to help defend them against the haters.

Beyond that, I have no idea. The only other non-story items I know are…

  • I read it late-70’s or early 80’s.
  • Given the more grown-up content, it is not likely to be a children’s book; though it could be Teens and older.

I know it’s not much to go on, but it’s been driving me batty trying to remember the title.

 

324Z: Sports Car Race With Dirty Oil

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When I was a kid in the 1950’s, I read a series of ‘car books’ about a young man who became interested in sports car racing.  I remember that the name of the car manufacturer was ‘black’ something and as an advertising promotion, they once drove one of the cars many, many miles (20,000+?) without an oil change, and then entered the car in a sports car race.

Any of this sound familiar to anyone?

324Y: Fairies and Giants and Creatures In One Massive Compilation

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I am looking for a children’s book I read in the late 70s or early 80s that was about fairies and giants and other mystical creatures. It was huge (to a 6 year old!), 13 to 15 inches in height & hundreds of pages printed on very thin tissue-like paper that was pastel multi-coloured, in sections. A pink section, then a yellow section, then a pale green section, etc. I believe the coloured sections coordinated with the sections of the book which i think were divided into “stories about giants”, “stories about fairies”. It may have had “A Great Big Book….” or “The Big Book of….” in the title. It was large print with pictures here and there.

Thank you!!

324X: People Do Their Night Jobs

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Seeking a 1940s or 1950s children’s picture book.  I believe the illustrations were somewhat colored and others were only line drawings of color.
The story tells about all the different jobs that people do during the night while we sleep, such as the mail trucks, milk trucks, or trains that deliver things.  Bakeries, maybe?
It was a treasured book at my great-grandmother’s house for my father when he was little, and then I read it over and over when I was little.  Sadly, it was either sold or taken by his aunt when the estate was settled.

324W: Dinosaurs Galore

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I was looking for my favorite book as a child when I stumbled across this website.  It was a hardcover (thinner) book on Dinosaurs.  The covers were gray, I believe it had a Tyrannosaurus Rex on the front cover, possibly in red writing.
Regretfully I don’t remember the exact title, just Dinosaurs, it was purchased around 1992.
Each page showed large depictions of each dinosaur in its natural habitat and some pictures were quite scary (or maybe that’s because I was a kid).
On the back cover or towards the back of the picture book it had a depiction of a Saber Tooth Tiger attacking or eating another dinosaur.